Equality for all, including gays

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the Georgia Republican who was first elected to the Senate by maligning the patriotism of an opponent who had lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam, sees awful consequences if the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell†policy is repealed and gays and lesbians can serve openly in the Armed Forces.

Once gay and lesbian soldiers “demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual sex,†the senator warned his colleagues on the Armed Services Committee, you’ll have an outbreak of adultery, alcoholism, fraternization and — get this — “body art.†These activities will multiply because gays are a threat to “good order and discipline and effective unit cohesion,†said the senator who never experienced a day in the military.

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That was the most outrageous statement Chambliss has been credited with since he compared the Vietnam triple amputee Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein for voting against an amendment to prohibit Homeland Security employees from joining unions.

Now, I was in the Army a decade before Sen. Chambliss used five student deferments to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, but even back then, when Ike was in the White House, there was a lot of adultery, alcoholism, fraternization and body art in military circles without any help from gays and lesbians. There was, in fact, a lot of it going around in George Washington’s army — except for body art, which didn’t become popular in the U.S. military until World War I.

The mess sergeant in my basic training company sported a fine tattoo on his arm — a lady clad only in a sash with the motto, “Death Before Disoner†[sic[, emblazoned upon it. When we had KP duty in the mess hall, we’d speculate about what would happen to the recruit with the nerve to tell the sergeant “dishonor†was misspelled on his body art, but we never tried to find out.

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That was in 1956, just three years after the Army and the other armed forces finally complied with the 1948 integration order. My basic training company at Fort Dix had white, black and Puerto Rican draftees from the New York metropolitan area. Our drill sergeants included a couple of blacks, one Puerto Rican and two Southern whites. They treated all of us miserably without regard for the race, creed, color or national origin of them or us.

The newly integrated Americans in my Army couldn’t hide who they were. They were integrated into that Army because an American president thought it was the right thing to do. In 1947, Harry Truman told the NAACP, “It is my conviction that we have reached a turning point in the long history of our efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all Americans — and when I say all Americans, I mean all Americans.â€

Like President Obama today, Truman faced strong opposition in Congress, especially from members of his own party from the then solidly Democratic South.

And so, on July 29, 1948, just two weeks after the Democratic Convention had reluctantly nominated him for re-election, Truman bypassed Congress and issued Executive Order 9981, which declared “there shall be equality of treatment for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.†Truman was charged with abusing his authority and it was believed he had blown even the slight chance he had to be elected because the South would desert him. It did, but he was elected anyway.

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Those opposed to gays in the military today make the bogus argument that Obama shouldn’t devote precious time to this issue when the economy is in chaos and we’re involved in two wars. The measure could face a 60-vote Senate test.

Why, then, doesn’t Obama, who made a campaign promise to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, simply issue an executive order ending it? The answer is he can’t. There is a law that prohibited gays from serving in the military until it was changed in 1993 to allow them to serve if they didn’t reveal their sexual orientation. Racial segregation in the armed forces was a long-standing policy that could be changed by presidential order, but Congress makes and unmakes laws.

That’s fine. We can either have an up-and-down, majority vote on Don’t Ask or the Republicans can launch a Senate filibuster and we can see if 41 of them are willing to vote against equality for all of our citizens.

Dick Ahles is a retired journalist from Simsbury. E-mail him at dahles@hotmail.com.